"The Goldmans have retained a publisher who is rushing the book to market as we speak. And thus, has made the show a mute point for me." Brown also said, "I very much wanted to be on the show if I could have brought about a change for the positive but the Goldmans, Sharlene Martin the agent and Eric Kampmann the publisher, have made sure that could not happen."

Unless she's planning something with a mime, she should have said moot point.

Granted, headlines are tricky because they're short. You can compress writing so much, though, that you squeeze new meaning in. It's not as though the French would be happier about this spray if it were properly housed. They're angry that the spray is being used on homeless people (who in all likelihood smell bad enough and don't need any further assaults on their dignity).

A better headline would have been: French: Don't Use Spray on Homeless

The severed head of a goat was found near the corner of the building stuffed inside a pink gift bag.

... and later in the story...

She said that whomever it is has her attention and that of police.

That's a remarkable gift bag that can accommodate an entire building.

As far as the second error goes, yikes. Use whom only when it's the object of a phrase -- for whom the bell tolls; to whom she sent the goat's head. In this sentence, the sender "has her attention," and is the subject.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

For our 400th post, we thought we'd share this contribution from Craig Conley, who has a particularly funny cartoon on his blog right now. Craig writes:

Capital "A"and"Capital A"mean two different things in the context of this old architecture diagram.

The first refers to the Roman letter "A."

The second refers to a Greco-Roman article (the column's upper plate, or "capital," labeled "A").

This is an elegant reminder of the power we have in punctuation. It's not just the quotation mark that works this way. An apostrophe is the difference between hell and he'll, between can't and cant, a fancy word for cliche or jargon. And as Lynne Truss pointed out, extra marital sex is a good thing to have, while extra-marital sex is not.

After much thought and consideration, I believe this is the right time for my family and I to begin a new chapter in our lives.

Ignoring, for a moment, the tired metaphor of life-as-a-book, we will point out that it should be for my family and me.

The easiest way to tell whether to use I or me is to drop the other object of the preposition. Would Gonzales say, "I believe this is the right time for I"?

Probably not. We hope not. We can't say for certain.

Perhaps instead of comparing his life to a book, he should read one. We have just the volume in mind. It comes out in May, 2008 from St. Martin's Press, and we just finished a draft last night... (insert celebratory squeal here). It's called "Things That Make Us [Sic]," and it's based on the work of SPOGG.

In 1986, Hamilton City Council members voted to add a punctuation mark... specifically, an exclamation point, to the city's name.

The move brought the city national attention. The mayor did television and radio talk shows on both the East and West coasts. Editorials in papers like the Washington Post and the Atlanta Constitution made Hamilton a source of curiosity for towns across the country.

Hamilton is the only city in the United States to legally have an exclamation mark attached to its name. The name was not accepted by United States Board on Geographic Names.

Naturally, it got us thinking about other punctuation and typographic marks that might be used to name cities:

Monday, August 20, 2007

People, people, people: It's Reese's. We're not sure what the plural of this is, but we're certain it's not Reeses's. On the bright side, they got Ho Hos right. But why just one Milky Way? Is there a shortage because of the war? It's about time we started with the rationing.In any case, the moral to this is that there is is such a thing as too much fried food.

Then, a misplaced modifier follows in the lead, which makes it sound as though the ban's "wings" were clipped. This could be rewritten to retain the bird metaphor: The state smoking ban ruffled the feathers of the local Eagles' club, but now, the group's wings have been clipped. Still, it's yucky.

Anyone still reading by the third paragraph can probably figure out what's happening, but this isn't how news reporting is supposed to work. Newspapers are suffering, and this sort of thing doesn't help.

Friday, August 17, 2007

This why it's important to proofread -- and keep a close eye on your toddlers.

Mistaken Ark. law would let toddlers wed

By ANDREW DEMILLOASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- A law passed this year allows Arkansans of any age - even infants - to marry if their parents agree, and the governor may have to call a special session to fix the mistake, lawmakers said Friday.

The legislation was intended to establish 18 as the minimum age to marry but also allow pregnant teenagers to marry with parental consent, bill sponsor Rep. Will Bond said. An extraneous "not" in the bill, however, allows anyone who is not pregnant to marry at any age if the parents allow it.

"It's clearly not the intent to allow 10-year-olds or 11-year-olds to get married," Bond said. "The legislation was screwed up."

The bill reads: "In order for a person who is younger than eighteen (18) years of age and who is not pregnant to obtain a marriage license, the person must provide the county clerk with evidence of parental consent to the marriage."

A code revision commission - which fixes typographical and technical errors in laws - had tried to correct the mistake, but a group of legislators said Friday the commission went beyond its powers.

"You're either pregnant or you're not pregnant," Sen. Dave Bisbee said. "Rarely will that be a typographical error." [EVEN THOUGH COMMAS TOTALLY LOOK LIKE SPERM.]

The Arkansas Legislative Council asked the independent commission to reverse its correction. Several lawmakers said a special session may be necessary.

"We need a special session to fix this," Sen. Sue Madison said. "I am concerned about pedophiles coming to Arkansas to find parents who are willing to sign a very young child's consent."

Before the new law took effect July 31, girls could get married with parental consent at 16 and boys at 17.

The Legislature formally adjourned its session in May and is not scheduled to meet again until January 2009, unless Gov. Mike Beebe calls a special session. Beebe said he wanted to look at all options for correcting the error before deciding whether to call a special session.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

According to a congressman's wife who attended a Republican women's luncheon yesterday, Karl Rove explained the rationale behind the president's amnesty/open-borders proposal this way: "I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas."

We've never been to Las Vegas, but had no idea the beds and tomatoes in Las Vegas could strike such fear into the heart of a parent. Now, Mr. Turd Blossom could have meant he didn't want his son to pick tomatoes, or make beds in Las Vegas. That comma changes the meaning of the sentence, if not the sentiment of its author.

But it still makes us wonder about the beds in Las Vegas. What could possibly be happening in them that would traumatize a 17-year-old forced to make them? We'll never know, because what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Alas.

At any rate, we'd be happy to talk about the job we had when we were 17. We cut straps in a golf-bag manufacturing company. Every day, we came home with a sore back, burned hands, and the scent of hot rubber in our hair.

The job paid $4 per hour, but was worth much more for the lessons in humility it taught, along with respect for the would-be American immigrants we worked with. All 17-year-olds should be so lucky.

This is probably the most unusual use for the @ sign we've seen, and we had no idea what the sound "at" meant in Chinese. Read on:

Couple tries to name baby 'at' symbol

BEIJING — A Chinese couple seeking a distinctive and modern name for their child chose the commonly used Internet 'at' symbol, much to the consternation of Chinese officials.

The unidentified couple and the attempted naming were cited Thursday by a Chinese government official as an example of bizarre names creeping into the Chinese language.

The father "said 'the whole world uses it to write e-mails and translated into Chinese it means 'love him,'"' Li Yuming, the vice director of the State Language Commission, said at a news conference.

The symbol pronounced in English as 'at' sounds like the Chinese phrase "love him."

Written Chinese does not use an alphabet but is comprised of characters, sometimes making it difficult to develop new words for new or foreign things and ideas.

In their quest for a different name, Li said that the parents of baby '@' were not alone. As of last year, only 129 surnames accounted for 87 percent of all surnames in China, Li said, suggesting that the uniformity drove people to find more individual given names.

"There was even a 'Zhao-A,' a 'King Osrina' and other extremely individualistic names," Li said, according to a transcript of the news conference posted on the government's main web site.

Li did not say whether police, who are the arbiters of names because they issue identity cards, rejected baby '@' and the others. But nationwide last year there were 60 million people's names that used "unfamiliar characters," Li said.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

HBO does it; Vanity Fair does it. Still, I could never bring myself to do it, even if you put a gun to my puppy’s head. We’re talking committing the heinous sin of the grammatical error, or the equally criminal offense of running something without having a sober editor take a look at it first.

I was horrified when I went to the HBO website on Monday, the 13th, to look up some details about that evening’s episode of Big Love. As someone who is quite familiar with the deep, down doctrine of Mormonism and its polygamous offshoots, I am stunned every week by the accuracy and thrilling cheek of the series, and I wanted to see if I could find out where the writers got their knowledge and nerve.

Right there, prominently featured on the HBO home page - in a box with a glowing picture of Ginnifer Goodwin, who plays Margene - is a sentence that reads (and I kid you not): “But how what does Margene feel when they run into a old acquantance?” There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don’t even know where to begin. If it doesn’t bother you, you might have a future as an HBO website editor.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

As the trucker spoke, I was reminded of a book that came out a few years ago called “The Dignity of Working Men,” by the sociologist, Michèle Lamont, who is now at Harvard. Lamont interviewed working-class men, and described what she calls “the moral centrality of work.”

When comma is in front of her name, it makes her identity a non-essential clause. This is not the case. Even if Harvard has hired only one sociologist lately, her name is necessary information in a sentence written this way.

The comma after her name, meanwhile, is correct. "Who is now at Harvard" is a phrase modifying Lamont.

Perhaps we are extra-persnickety today, but shouldn't a columnist at the world's most prestigious newspaper -- and his copy editor -- get this sort of thing right?

Other common errors included writing compliment instead of complement, effect instead of affect and sun instead of son.

Faced with having to repeatedly correct students' mistakes he decided to compile a list of the blunders to demonstrate how bad the English of undergraduates really is.

The list - consisting of the mistakes of 75 second and third year students - will be published in the next issue of the Queen's English Society journal, Quest, under the title `Errors in the English of highly selected undergraduates'.

This checklist, compiled by a writer and editor, lists 74 common errors in prose. How many have you made? We're confident we've screwed up in all of these ways, which is why we love a good copy editor.

Friday, August 10, 2007

From a creepy story on MSNBC about a man who was bitten by the detached head of a rattlesnake:

Mike Livingston, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, said the area where the Anderson’s live is near prime snake habitat. But he said he had never heard of anyone being bit by a decapitated snake before.

“That’s really surprising [sic] but that’s an important thing to tell people,” he said. “It may have been just a reflex on the part of the snake.

First, of course, the Andersons live near prime snake habitat (not the singular possessive Anderson's). And then -- although if I were editing, I'd let this go -- there's the gerund "being" that needs a modifier(anyone's being) and then there's "bit" that should be "bitten." And then, there should be a comma between "surprising" and "but." And THEN, the biologist says the bite "may" (but he should have used might) have been a reflex "on the part of the (detached head of) the snake!" (you think?)So, seems to me, this article is just downright SNAKE-BIT, er.. SNAKE-BITTEN!?

LONG BEACH, California (AP) -- A mother charged with driving her14-year-old son and six other juveniles to a skate park so they could attack another teenager pleaded not guilty Tuesday to murder.

Eva Daley is being held on $1 million bail.

Police said Eva Daley knew her son and the others planned to kill Jose Cano when she drove them to the park June 26. Cano, 13, died of stab wounds. Police said he had previously been involved in a dispute with the youths.

An angry confrontation between supporters of Daley, 30, and the slain boy broke out in the hallway outside the courtroom shortly after she entered her plea.

We don't want to make light of a sad situation, but this sure makes it sound as though the dead boy has come back to life for revenge.

Lest anyone dismiss the importance of hyphens, we submit this headline from the Associated Press:

Wis. cops capture diaper-wearing monkey

Had the copy editor neglected to include the hyphen, police would have been searching for a diaper wearing a monkey. As little sense as a diapered monkey wandering the streets of Wisconsin makes, a diaper on the lam would be even more senseless.

Here's to the hyphen, and to people who keep their monkeys safely on leashes.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

If I were to name SPOGG I might call it the Social Philanthropic Order of the Gentle Grammarians.

From this day forth, we shall be known as the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, and/or the Social Philanthropic Order of the Gentle Grammarians. We will happily consider additional names based on our acronym.

The fired intern from MySpace (Not Joey) has also stolen my private sex tape. Iam offering $25,000 for it's return (unless someone would like to distribute it — then I'm willing to deal). The rumer mill says that Perez Hilton knows who took it.

Then again, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's daughter is named Rumer. Perhaps Hollywood has some sort of grinding device that is used on the spawn of celebrities. That could explain a lot.

Craig Conley sends this our way from Bill Pere's "Writing in the Key of W":

A large part of the difficulty is in finding the balance points between specificity vs. blandness, and imagery vs. vagueness.

For Mr. Pere, those pesky prepositions seem to be the hard part of writing. Vs. is an abbreviation for versus, and it means "against." Had he replaced "vs." with "and," his sentence would have been much more clear.

Monday, August 06, 2007

The New York Times ran a long series of corrections detailing misspelled names. This is one of the first things journalism teachers address. If you spell the name wrong, no one will trust the other facts you report. We have no comment on this, other than to say we're glad we're out of the newspaper business.

An article in some copies on Wednesday about Congressional efforts to pass legislation to expand the government's electronic wiretapping powers misspelled -- yet again -- the surname of the attorney general of the United States, in three of four references. He is Alberto R. Gonzales, not Gonzalez. (The Times has misspelled Mr. Gonzales's name in at least 14 articles dating to 2001 when he became White House counsel. This year alone Mr. Gonzales's name has been misspelled in February and March, and in two articles in April.)

An article on the Street Scene page in Business Day on Friday, about the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore's entry into bankruptcy law practice, misspelled the name of another law firm that recently lost a bankruptcy specialist. It is Willkie Farr & Gallagher, not Wilkie. (The Times has misspelled the firm's name in at least 50 articles since 1958. The "Willkie" comes from Wendell L. Willkie, who joined the firm shortly after losing the 1940 presidential election to Franklin D. Roosevelt and remained there until his death in October 1944.)

A credit for pictures last Monday with an article about a reunion of the comedy troupe the Kids in the Hall misspelled the given name of the photographer. He is Yannick Grandmont, not Jannick.

An obituary on July 21 of Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, who marketed memorabilia and toys based on A. A. Milne's children's books about Winnie the Pooh, misspelled the name of the department store that agreed to let her set up Pooh Corners for children. It is Neiman Marcus, not Nieman Marcus. (The Times has misspelled the company's name in at least 195 articles since 1930.)

Sunday, August 05, 2007

You'd think that reporters and editors at Newsweek would know the difference between lose and loose. But they don't. From an article about bad workout habits:

“One of things that continues to amaze me after 30 or 40 years is that people still try to sweat fat off,” says Mark Occhipinti, president of the American Fitness Practitioners and Associates. “They exercise in a hot environment, thinking that they’re loosing fat or weight, but all they’re doing is dehydrating themselves.”

English has always turned nouns into verbs. Sometimes, though, the results are hideous.

Carolyn sends this example from the Web site gethuman.com:

"Organizations should use this data to trend improvement over time, to bonus call center executives, to impact support representatives' compensation and training, and to benchmark against the industry."

The Palm Tree Pundit sends us these disturbing coconuts from paradise:

First, this headline from the Honolulu Star Bulletin:

One man's pets is another man's food

There are two things wrong. The first is that pets need a plural verb. It should be One man's pets ARE another man's food. The second problem, of course, is that we shouldn't eat pets. That's a waste of expensive obedience school.

Up until now, the only problem with them has been the clumsy punctuation we use. If we use a traditional question mark, some yahoo might answer. If we use a period, we sound like Eeyore, the donkey who needs Prozac.

The pitch should have said that guests would be taken on a tour of the capital -- with an "a" -- city. That would include the same tour of the Capitol -- with an "o" -- building that is available to any member of the public.

"My hope is that they, they'll see it, and it'll mean something," the 36-year-old said. Nicholson recently co-authored an article about leaving her polygamous community for Glamour magazine and is planning to write a book as well.

It's also amusing that she co-authored the article. That group thing must be a hard habit to break.